1between a colonial clash and world war...

1 Between a colonial clash andWorld War ZeroThe impact of the Russo-Japanese War in a global perspective

Rotem Kowner

On the morning of February 6, 1904, Japan severed its diplomatic relationswith Russia. The same day, the Japanese Combined Fleet under thecommand of Admiral Tøgø Heihachirø set sail for the shores of Korea. Offthe port city of Chemulpo, in the vicinity of the capital Seoul, the forcesplit into two. Most of the warships made for Port Arthur while a smallnaval force under Rear Admiral Ury¥ Sotokichi remained to protect thelanding of the army on Korean soil. On the night of February 8, ten Japanesedestroyers attacked Russian warships anchored in the harbor of Port Arthurbut did not inflict much damage. The following morning the Japanese forcesof the First Army took control of the Korean capital while Ury¥’s navalforce demanded of the Russian naval detachment in Chemulpo that it leavethe port. The Russians obeyed, but, following a short offshore engagement,they returned to the port and scuttled the cruiser Variag and the gunshipKoreets rather than hand them over to the enemy. These seemingly trivialepisodes were but the prologue to a colossal struggle. The next day Japandeclared war, whereupon a 19-month war began officially.1

From a broad historical perspective, the Russo-Japanese War was thelong-anticipated flashpoint of the enmity between two expanding powers.On the western boundaries of Asia the Russian Empire had been advancingrelentlessly southeastward for centuries, while on the eastern fringe of thiscontinent the Japanese Empire had been spreading westward for three shortdecades. The difference in the extent of their imperialist expansion, however,did not diminish the magnitude of the conflict, and additional dissimilari-ties only made its resolution by diplomatic means ever less feasible. In fact,apart from their imperialist aspirations, their recent modernization, and theirtechnologically advanced armies, there was little similarity between the two states. They differed in the size of their territory, population, andeconomy, as well as in their racial composition, language, and religion.Eventually, the encounter between them took place in the killing fields ofManchuria and Korea, areas both sides were eager to control. It was nottheir first or their last confrontation, but certainly it has exerted the greatestimpact on both.2

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Historiographically, views on the significance of the Russo-Japanese Warhave undergone tremendous fluctuations since its outbreak and throughoutthe subsequent century, shifting from sensation to amnesia and recentlyrevived recollection. Present readers might be surprised to discover that theRusso-Japanese War was not an unknown event at the time of its occur-rence. On the contrary, for such a peripheral conflict, it generated enormousreverberations. It was an astounding war, and millions around the globekept abreast of the news of the surprising victories of “little” Japan overthe “mighty” Russian Empire.

In the following years many prominent figures who shaped the historyof the twentieth century referred to the Russo-Japanese War and remem-bered acutely the sensation it created. Adolf Hitler, for example, was oneof those who took the war seriously, so much so that it might havecontributed to his early evolving Weltanschauung. Serving his sentence inLandsberg prison two decades after the Russo-Japanese War and writinghis fateful manifesto Mein Kampf, Hitler’s memory of it was still vivid. In1904 the future Führer was 15 years old, and the war found him “muchmore mature and also more attentive” than during the Boer War, in whichhe also took, he confessed, great interest. He at once sided with the Japanese,and considered the Russian fiasco “a defeat of the Austrian Slavic nation-alities.”3 Hitler, of course, was not alone in understanding the importanceof that event. Many others, particularly in Asia, regarded the war as a forma-tive event in their political upbringing. During the hostilities India’s futureleader of independence, Mohandas Gandhi, for example, grasped fromremote South Africa that “the people of the East seem to be waking upfrom their lethargy.”4 Similarly, Sukarno, Indonesia’s first president afterits independence, appraised Japan’s victory in retrospect and viewed it asone of the major events affecting “the development of Indonesian nation-alism.”5

Less than a decade after its conclusion, however, the war was hardlymentioned again, and after another three decades its claim to fame hadvanished completely. Overshadowed by two global conflicts, and sufferingfrom the demise of both regimes that took part in it, the Russo-JapaneseWar was virtually forgotten in the second half of the twentieth century. Itwas more or less destined for such a fate, as from an early stage this titanicstruggle was customarily labeled merely one more clash in a series ofcolonial wars that afflicted the world throughout the nineteenth century.6

No wonder, therefore, that most history books dealing with the modern agemake no more than a brief mention of it, and even today some fundamentalissues of the war, such as the decision-making on both sides during thewar, and the military campaign, still await a comprehensive examinationthat takes into account all sources available.7

A typical example of the prevalent disregard for the war can be foundin Barbara Tuchman’s book The Proud Tower (1966), in which she sought

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to provide a portrait of “the world” in the three decades before World War I. In her preface this influential historian admitted that she adopted avery selective view in attempting to describe the image of the world duringthat critical period. Tuchman had no hesitation in stating that it might havebeen possible to include a chapter on the Russo-Japanese War, as well asa plausible chapter on the Boer War, Chekhov, or the everyday shopkeeper.But no, she chose to deal with what she believed were the main issues. Herwriting is decidedly Eurocentric, and almost inevitably Tuchman ends byfocusing on the Anglo-Saxon world, and then in descending order on WesternEurope and tsarist Russia, while devoting only a few lines to the Russo-Japanese War—a critical juncture along the road to World War I.8

Among Western historians Tuchman is obviously not an exception. Infact, her tendency to look at the world through European spectacles and toignore events outside the sphere of Europe and North America is rather therule. Still, the blame for this historiographic amnesia about the Russo-Japanese War should not be attributed to Western myopia alone. Much ofit was due to the proximity of the war to an even more important event, atleast from a European point of view. There is no doubt that World War I(1914–18) was an event on a different scale. It changed the face of Europeand of the entire world, and created not only a new international systembut also a different way of perceiving the modern era. Apart from the shadowcast by this subsequent colossal event, the Russo-Japanese War was for-gotten simply because it happened “out there” at the distant edge of Asia,in remote and sparsely populated areas. The Japanese and Russians whofought it were considered the “Other,” obscure and anonymous troops, andtheir losses did not affect the hearts and minds of the public in the West.The military campaign was conducted amidst a local population that barelyrecorded its history, and the relatively few journalists who went to coverthe fighting were kept under tight control and strict censorship. Their reportswere also not immortalized by many visual mementos, since photographingequipment was heavy and the battle arena too distant, motion pictures hadonly just emerged, and live television broadcasts were still many decadesin the future.

No less important, the two opponents themselves played an active rolein diminishing the importance of their conflict. In Russia, soon to be trans-formed into the Soviet Union, the defeat emerged as just one more eventin a long despicable series of fiascos associated with the “old” regime. Withthe Bolsheviks’ rise to power 12 years after the conclusion of the PortsmouthPeace Treaty, the defeat against Japan was turned into a war of the tsar andnot of the people who fought to overthrow him.9 In Japan, by contrast, thevictories of the war became an invaluable asset in the brief military legacyof the imperial forces. Nevertheless, at the time of its surrender to the Alliesin 1945 Japan too began a process of suppression and denial of its imperialpast, in a manner somewhat recalling what had happened to its Russian

Between a colonial clash and World War Zero 3

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arch-rival several decades earlier. With such tortuous legacies, it would havebeen most unlikely for the memory of the war not to fade from nationalconsciousness on both sides.

In the last few years the war has been widely commemorated and has received much more attention than in previous decades. Benefiting from the emergence of national consciousness in Japan since the 1980s and thecollapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, it became again a validtopic for research and reflection. With the hindsight of a century it is possibleto examine the war from an appropriate historiographic distance. By nowall available documents related to the conflict have been declassified andanalyzed, its heroes have all died, and the sensationalism that envelopedthe battles is long gone. Today more than ever, it becomes clear that thewar was not only of great importance at the time it occurred, but that ithad an important impact on the entire history of the twentieth century.

A recent edited volume, The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective:World War Zero, seems to reflect the greater role that the war is given incurrent historiography. The editors of this volume contend that the modernera of global conflict began with the Russo-Japanese War rather than in1914. In their brief introduction, they suggest that the war deserves thisdesignation since it was fought between two powers, a European and anAsian, and was sponsored by a third party money market.10 While the titleWorld War Zero admittedly sounds appealing, the Russo-Japanese War wasnot a global conflict. Not only did it involve directly only two adversaries,but for both of them it was far from a total war in the form they wouldexperience in the following world wars. From Russia’s perspective, in fact,the clash with Japan was not a total war even in the sense of the NapoleonicWars. During most of the campaign only a small segment of the Russianmilitary machine was involved, and Russian casualties in Manchuria werefar lower than those even in the Crimean War.11 No less important, no otherpower assisted either of the belligerents, and even their closest allies—Britain on Japan’s side and France on Russia’s side—did their utmost toavoid taking any active part in the conflict. Finally, the war did not witnessthe introduction of any revolutionary weapon, certainly not on the scale ofthe airplane, tank, or submarine, as was the case in World War I. All inall, it seems to resemble much more the Crimean War or even the AmericanCivil War than any global conflict of the scale the world would experiencetwice within a 35-year period later on.

If the Russo-Japanese War carried any global significance it lay not in itsorigins in the actual warfare, in the diplomatic alliances, or in financialsupport obtained during the war, but in its repercussions. Although thesewere associated directly with the decline of Russia and the rise of Japan,they had a wide-ranging effect on numerous nations, regions, and spheres.Furthermore, these repercussions did not involve only immeasurable senti-ments, such as fear, joy, or envy, but touched upon the economies andmilitary organizations of every power in the early twentieth century, and its

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balance of power with others. Through this, the war affected the stability ofEurope, Russia in particular, the equilibrium between the United States andJapan, and the territorial status quo in northeast Asia.

Implications for Europe: deterioration of the power balance

The Russo-Japanese War did not cause any instant or visible upheaval inEurope but its ultimate impact on this continent was devastating. It did notlead immediately to a substantial rise in military expenditure; nor did it startan arms race. It did not prompt any new radical attitude either, and evensome of the political processes associated with it had begun to crystallizebefore the war broke out.12 More than anything, its impact in Europe waslinked with Russia’s debacle in the battlefields of Manchuria and the conse-quent instability at home in the wake of the 1905 revolution. The status ofRussia had in turn tangible, arguably even radical, repercussions on thepower balance in Europe. Its impact was initially of a psychological natureand took shape in part during the war and in part after it, leading to a newbalance, or rather imbalance, of power. The new political arrangement thatemerged in Europe during 1904–5 was one of the precipitants, if not themain one, of the deterioration that led to the outbreak of the Great War lessthan a decade later.

Russia was not reduced to a marginal power following its final defeatsin Mukden and Tsushima during the first half of 1905, but it unquestionably


Map 1 World empires, 1904–14.

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became second-rate in its image, its military capabilities, and its actualability to influence others. The collapse of this mighty power underminedthe political and military equilibrium that had endured in Europe since theNapoleonic era. While Russia lost its former military status, Germany hadjust completed a ten-year period of military build-up and during the waremerged as Europe’s supreme military and industrial power. The Germanrise was not a new phenomenon, but the Russian defeat suddenly high-lighted the continental hegemony of Germany. The ascent of Germany hadbegun more than four decades earlier, and even before the war otherEuropean powers perceived it as jeopardizing the stability of the continent.However, the exposure of Russia’s military weakness, its naval losses, finan-cial burden, and internal instability swung the already uneven militarybalance in Europe still more to Germany’s favor. In the subsequent decadethe fluctuating balance between these two powers determined the fate ofthe continent. During 1904–14 this fragile equilibrium was in large measure,as David Herrmann convincingly argues, “the story of Russia’s prostration,its subsequent recovery, and the effects of this development upon thestrategic situation.”13

Much of the road to the Great War was therefore associated with chang-ing perceptions of this military balance by the German leadership.14 But,despite its economic and military hegemony, pre-war Germany was isolatedand lacked a large empire overseas. The war in Manchuria providedGermany with a unique opportunity to reverse its prolonged failing diplo-macy, which had begun to deteriorate since its last successful diplomaticcollaboration in 1895 (the “Three Power Intervention” with France andRussia), aimed not by chance against Japan. Due to the sudden change ofmilitary power in 1905, Germany was able to pose a threat of war againstits western neighbor France. The reluctance to give up the geopoliticaladvantages gained during the war, together with the desire to disrupt therecent Anglo-French Entente of 1904, was the underlying motive for thekaiser’s landing in Tangiers in March 1905 and contesting French attemptsto turn the area into its protectorate. Five months later the flamboyant kaiserturned to Germany’s eastern neighbor Russia, in another attempt to disruptthe position of France, this time by driving a wedge between Franco-Russianties. He ventured into an abortive exercise in personal diplomacy too bysigning a treaty with Tsar Nicholas II at Björkö, Finland, believing the lattercould be wooed at a time of debacle abroad and crisis at home (see Map2, p. 10). The kaiser was momentarily right, perhaps, but German leadersunderestimated the forces in Russia that prevented it from abandoningFrance and entering into alliance with Germany. Hence, in a short time thetreaty seemed “little more than a curious episode in Russian diplomacy.”15

German prospects for a successful offensive on its western border wereprobably better in 1905 than nine years later on the eve of World War I.16

Concluding that Russia could not help France, German strategists were plan-ning during the Russo-Japanese War an offensive (“preventive war”) against

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France. Their scheme did not materialize since the ambitious kaiser wasstill unready for the undertaking. He probably did not realize the full arrayof consequences of the war and revolution for Russia, but nonetheless heorchestrated the plans, albeit without sufficient coordination.17 Although the remote conflict in Manchuria exposed the weaknesses characterizingGerman governmental structure, German planners did update their draftsand completed the notorious Schlieffen Plan in December 1905. TheirFrench counterparts did not remain idle, revising simultaneously their ownPlan XV and completing it in 1906.18 Hesitating to go to war, the kaisernonetheless appointed Helmut von Moltke on January 1, 1906 as his newChief of Staff, replacing the 72-year-old Alfred von Schlieffen, believingthe latter was too old to lead the troops effectively should an armed conflictbreak out.19

The desire of Germany, and to a lesser extent of Austro-Hungary, tomaintain its continental hegemony acquired during 1904–5 was one of thecardinal causes of the outbreak of World War I. These two nations perceivedthe Russo-Japanese War as a window of opportunity in which they couldexploit their momentary hegemony. Germany in particular, argues MatthewSeligmann (Chapter 7, this volume), was painfully aware that its relativepower was diminishing during the decade that followed the war and thatthis window was rapidly closing. The sense that the period of grace wasabout to end became acute in 1914 and turned into one of the most deci-sive undercurrents, at least on the German and Austrian side, of the waragainst Russia and France in 1914. This sentiment can be plainly discerned,for example, in Moltke’s view, expressed at a meeting with his Austriancounterpart Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf on May 12, 1914: “To wait anylonger means a diminishing of our chances; as far as manpower is concernedwe cannot enter into a competition with Russia.” Eight days later, recalledthe German Foreign Minister Gottlieb von Jagow, Moltke lectured him that“there was no alternative to waging a preventive war in order to defeat theenemy as long as we could still more or less pass the test.”20

As for Russia, the impact of the war with Japan was both concrete andpsychological. It was not the only cause of the Russian Revolution in 1905,but it served as its main catalyst. The link between the war outside Russiaand the events occurring within its territory is unquestionable. The con-straints of a large and unexpected colonial war, far from home and costlyin both human lives and material, aggravated social divisions, damagedagrarian economy, led to financial crisis, and enhanced political oppositionto the autocratic regime.21 While the upheavals in Russia prevented thepolitical system from acting with full force against Japan, the war outsideRussia made it difficult to respond harshly to the revolution within.Witnessing the weakness of the autocratic regime for the first time, thepublic were powerfully affected by the Russian defeat and their trust in the tsar never fully recovered.


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As Jonathan Frankel notes (Chapter 4, this volume), the most apparentoutcome of the war was Nicholas’s readiness to set up a legislative councilcalled the Duma, and to grant the people a constitution. The first Dumawas received in the palace of the tsar in 1906, but from the very start itstruggled to obtain political and civil rights, and to implement plans thatwere not included among the concessions the tsar granted at the end of1905. The battle for a less autocratic rule during the war did not preventthe formal dissolution of the first Duma within ten weeks, but this institu-tion continued to function up to 1917. The inability of Nicholas to copesimultaneously with a foreign enemy and an internal rebellion, as evidentin the Russo-Japanese War, was to recur with even greater intensity after1914, and to lead to his downfall three years later.22

Except for Russia and Germany, Britain seemed to be affected the mostby the war. During the military campaign in Manchuria and in the followingyears, Britain improved its geopolitical position, consolidating alliances with France and Russia, its two arch-rivals during the previous decades. Ofthe two, the rapprochement with France had the greatest significance. Onlya few years earlier Britain had been uncertain about the identity of its alliesin Europe.23 In April 1904, however, Britain rendered its final verdict when,together with France, it renewed their Entente Cordiale, according to whichFrance agreed to British control over Egypt in return for recognition ofFrench hegemony in Morocco. To many the Entente was a surprising turn-around, since only four years earlier Britain had still manifested a desirefor an alliance with Germany against France and Russia. Very few couldhave foreseen then that within seven years Britain would make an alliancewith both, and regard Germany as its most menacing rival.24

The sudden outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War accelerated the Anglo-French rapprochement as both were bound by specific clauses of theirrespective alliances with the two combatants: the Anglo-Japanese and theFranco-Russian alliances. Threatened by a direct conflict against each other,the two settled their differences within two months and concluded theirEntente, which lingered in some way throughout the twentieth century.25

Historians tend to disagree as to the extent to which this Anglo-Frenchalliance was originally intended to isolate Germany, since there was nothingin the agreement that could be construed as an anti-German measure.Nonetheless, many in Britain and France expressed relief at the fact thatGerman foreign policy could no longer count on the tension between thetwo states. Thereafter, Britain abandoned its long “splendid isolation” andbecame fully involved in the worsening continental quagmire, leading to itsfateful participation in the European conflict of 1914, side by side with itsnew allies.26

The British alliance with Japan since 1902 and the successful exploits ofthe Imperial Japanese Navy during the war enabled the Royal Navy to con-centrate its warships in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Enhanced by itsnew alliance with France, Britain regained its naval hegemony, and forced

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Italy, with its long and vulnerable coastline, to join its side. Through itsimproved ties with France, Britain was destined to enhance its contacts with Russia as well. Completing its containment in 1905, as Thomas Otte(Chapter 6, this volume) illustrates, it was ready now to signal its willing-ness to appease its arch-rival hitherto.27 Russia could not respond appropri-ately during the conflict with Japan, but once defeated and no longer themenace to Britain it was earlier, it shifted its policy toward its arch-rival afterthe conclusion of the war. Retiring from an almost century-long wide-rangingborder conflict with Britain across Asia (whimsically entitled “the GreatGame”), Russia now turned its focus back to Europe, the Balkans in parti-cular. As the Russo-Japanese War ended, Britain, or at least a few of its lead-ing figures, was convinced that in the event of a continental war in Europe,it must send troops to support its new ally France. This decision to intervenein European conflict was not modified until August 2, 1914.28

Eventually, the sudden rise of Germany, at least in relative terms, therapprochement between Britain and France, and its own defeat in Manchuriadrove Russia after the war into the arms of Britain, its arch-rival duringmost of the nineteenth century. In 1907, two years after the war ended, anew de facto balance between the European powers came into existence,and remained in force until the outbreak of World War I. Thenceforward,they were divided into two blocs: a diplomatic alliance of Great Britain,France, and Russia on the one hand, and a central defensive alliance ofGermany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Romania on the other. The road toan all-European war was not irreversible, but on the diplomatic front nochange occurred in the power relationships over the next several years, andno new alignment was formed to divert Europe from a major conflict.29

The impact of the war on Europe was also felt strongly in the Balkans,where the diminished status of St Petersburg contributed further to the desta-bilization of the region. Russia’s weakness exposed in northeast Asia causedAustria-Hungary to seek rapprochement initially, and on October 15, 1904the two nations signed a secret protocol to maintain the status quo in south-east Europe. Austria-Hungary’s growing sense of confidence during the warwas one of the causes of the deterioration of its diplomatic relations withItaly, leading soon to a virtual war scare and to unresolved suspicions andmutual armament during the following decade.30 Although weakened, Russiaresumed its active meddling in the Balkans after the war even more inten-sively than before. Although Russia had earlier expressed its consent, anAustrian move to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908 without notifyingSt Petersburg resulted in a six-month crisis with Russia. An armed clashwas averted through boycotts, threats, and reparations, but the successfulannexation left Austria-Hungary and its ally Germany in a greater mutualcommitment and with a sense of vindication. Thereafter, the conflict withRussia exacerbated, culminating in the outbreak of World War I. Russia’sdiminished power was manifested again in 1912, when it was unable toprevent the Balkan League from declaring war on the Ottoman Empire.


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Map 2 Europe, 1904–15.

KeyConflicts: I Italo–Turkish War (1911–12); II First Balkan War (1912–13); III Second Balkan War (1913).Treaties: A Anglo-French Entente (Entente Cordiale) (1904); B Treaty of Björkö (1905); C Anglo-Russian Entente (1907); D Anglo-French Naval Agreement (1912).Events:

1 The Dogger Bank incident (1904)2 St Petersburg—Revolution of 19053 Tangier—Landing of the German emperor and the First Moroccan Crisis (1905)4 Lodz Uprising (1905)5 Treaty of Björkö (1905)6 St Petersburg—The First Duma (1906)7 Algeciras Conference (1906)8 Hague Peace Conference (1907)9 Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1908)

10 Agadir—The Second Moroccan Crisis (1908)11 Istanbul—Constitutional Revolution (1908)12 Tripoli—Annexation of Tripolitania (1911)13 London Peace Conference (1913)14 Sarajevo—Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1914)

Note: The borders in the Balkans are pertinent to the period between the peace treaties signedin August–September 1913 and August 1914.

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Similarly, its secondary role in the Triple Entente did not prompt its allies,Britain and France, to lend support to its position in this turbulent regionduring the entire period until the Great War.31

The echoes of the Russo-Japanese War were felt even on the westernperiphery of the Russian Empire—Scandinavia and Poland in particular—and they gave rise to uprisings and demands for greater freedom. ForSweden, Russia’s defeat merely heralded a relief from the neighborlymenace,32 but for the semi-independent duchy of Finland the revolution of1905 stirred a national awakening together with attempts at radical activi-ties against Russia, to the extent of collaboration with Japanese agents.33

After several years of tightened Russian control over Finland, the demon-strations and general strikes that swept the country during 1905 led inNovember that year to the restoration of the status quo ante until 1899, andto the reinstatement of the rights of the local parliament. Divided betweenRussia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary, Poland too displayed a burst ofhope for independence during the revolution. Finnish and Polish hopesduring the revolution of 1905 should not be a surprise. It was, Hugh Seton-Watson argued:

as much a revolution of non-Russians against Russification as it was arevolution of workers, peasants, and radical intellectuals against autoc-racy. The two revolts were of course connected: the social revolutionwas in fact most bitter in non-Russian regions, with Polish workers,Latvian peasants, and Gregorian peasants as protagonists.34

While Poles swept the streets with anti-Russian riots, Josef Pilsudski andRoman Dmowski, leaders of two movements for the unification of Poland,ventured to Japan and examined ways of cooperation with the Japanese.35

Their eventual moderation paid off. Less than a year after the war, 36 Polishdelegates were elected to the first Duma. Signs of greater freedom wereapparent also in the field of education, and in the coming years the idea ofPolish unity under the protection of the Russian Empire grew stronger.However, as a result of Russian counteraction all these achievements weregradually lost, and Poland’s movement for independence, like Finland’s,was forced to wait until 1918 before its vision became a reality, at the costof much bloodshed.

A dress rehearsal for the Great War: military aspects

The disturbance of the balance of power in Europe during the Russo-Japanese War was not only in the diplomatic realm but also in the militarysphere. In many ways this confrontation between two large and modernarmies served as virtually the last general dress rehearsal for the colossalmilitary spectacle that was to take place in Europe a decade later. In aspeech in the British House of Commons in 1901, a young Member of


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Parliament named Winston Churchill foresaw with a fine degree of accu-racy that “Democracy is more vengeful than governments” and that the warsof nations “will be more terrible than the wars of kings.”36 Churchill wasright about the outcome but not about the sources of this phenomenon.Relative to the number of participants, the Russo-Japanese War proved aterrible slaughter. Yet compared with subsequent wars of the twentiethcentury, such as the two world wars, and even the Korean and VietnamWars, the death toll was rather low. The number of dead was only 1 percentof the loss of life suffered in World War I, and about 7 percent of the lossin the Korean War. The lower figures of casualties in the Russo-JapaneseWar were not so much due to the character of the regimes involved but tothe weapons available and the reluctance of both belligerents to utilize allnational resources to win the war. In addition, both kept their engagementsfar away from civilians, and were ready to reach a compromise in the earlystages of attrition.37

This unwillingness to keep on fighting was due mainly to the fact thatneither side fought on its own territory, and that each had much to lose at home. Furthermore, the conflict did not approach the totality of the warsor the ideological struggles, nor was it motivated by abysmal hatred anddehumanization, all of which would characterize many subsequent con-flicts of the twentieth century. Paradoxically, this conflict might have beenone of the last “gallant” wars, as well as one of the first “humane” ones—a conflict in which both sides maintained rather strictly the traditional rules of decency but also provided reasonable treatment to the wounded andprisoners of war according to the humane and unprecedented standards thatbegan to be instituted at the end of the nineteenth century.38 The Russo-Japanese War, therefore, may provide some hints not only as to the meansto prevent escalation, but also, as Peter Berton shows (Chapter 5, thisvolume), as to ways for a rapid rapprochement between belligerent nations.

Despite its remote location, the war attracted the attention of the world’sprincipal armies and navies, and military observers dispatched to Manchuriarecorded their conclusions in thick tomes.39 They witnessed a number oflarge-scale battles, notably the battle of Mukden in which about half amillion soldiers participated—the largest number in military history untilthen. As Yigal Sheffy points out (Chapter 16, this volume), the Russo-Japanese War was overwhelming proof for those still in doubt as to theimportance of firepower as the dominant factor in military combat. Skilledobservers, and an unprecedented number of them were in this campaign,did not have to wait for the fighting in 1916 around the trenches of Verdun. In the battlefields of Manchuria they could see the deadly anddecisive effect of the use of intensive artillery in general, and the machine-gun in particular, as a result of which the tactical range in front of thedefense lines became impenetrable. These observers’ reports notwithstand-ing, the strategic planners of all the major European armies did not absorbthis insight. They overlooked the growing superiority of defense in a war

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that lacked a revolutionary offensive weapon, miscalculating (on the Germanside) that the coming war in Europe would be “over by Christmas.” Oddlyenough, the successes the Imperial Japanese Army gained at terrible costserved to preserve existing beliefs and prevailing doctrines regarding thesupremacy of offense over defense. The reluctance or inability of theEuropean armies to emulate the tactical or strategic lessons of the war, inface of the dramatic increase in firepower in warfare, led to the horrendousslaughter a decade later.

The naval arena witnessed some dramatic improvements in weaponry andtactics after the war, but paradoxically the lessons of the war itself hardlycontributed to the radical transformation of naval warfare that took place inthe next two global conflicts, nor did it undermine substantially the con-temporary balance of power among the major fleets. The war presented along-awaited opportunity to test new weapons systems, and naval observersof all major navies, as Cord Eberspaecher shows (Chapter 18, this volume),followed closely the engagements between the Imperial Russian Navy (the world’s third largest fleet) and the Imperial Japanese Navy (the world’ssixth largest). The battle of Tsushima, which concluded the naval campaign,was the most important naval engagement since Trafalgar, and has remainedever since the last decisive battle between two major surface fleets. Thesinking of a considerable part of the Imperial Russian Navy placed the BritishRoyal Navy, the biggest fleet in the world, in an even stronger position than it had been throughout the previous two decades, and allowed it, andBritain as a whole, to concentrate on the German naval threat. Burdened by budgetary constraints, the Royal Navy accelerated the construction of anew and revolutionary class of battleship—the Dreadnought. The idea tolaunch such an all big-gun capital ship, which ultimately was armed withten big guns of the same caliber, instead of the four big guns in the standardbattleship until then, arose before the war, but the lessons of its naval battles, notably the battle of the Yellow Sea and the battle of Tsushima, pro-vided the final affirmation for this novel concept. After the completion ofthe Dreadnought in 1906 more than 100 battleships of earlier classes wererendered obsolete and a new global naval arms race commenced, reflectingthis time more exactly, as Phillips O’Brien noted, a nation’s economic andtechnological capabilities.40

The war also demonstrated some significant improvement in militarylogistics as both sides conducted the campaign for a long period and farfrom their home bases. While Japan efficiently sustained its troops on thecontinent, its logistic achievements did not match those of Russia, whichsupplied the needs of a large army at a distance of nearly 10,000 kilometers(about 6,200 miles) from its capital, using only a single railway track.Another complex and unprecedented operation from a logistic perspectivewas the voyage of the Russian Baltic Fleet to East Asia, which involvedenormous difficulties of refueling along the 33,000 kilometers (about 17,800nautical miles) covered by this armada from its departure point to the place


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of its defeat. The logistic capabilities demonstrated by both sides served asa catalyst for further improvements and new fuels that fully materialized inboth world wars.

The rise of new rivalry across the Pacific

Geographically remote from the two belligerents, the United States exploitedthe war as another step in its steady rise to global supremacy. While actingas a mediator in the peace process concluding the war, it changed from asympathetic supporter of Tokyo at the outbreak of the war to a worriedonlooker at Japan’s emergence as a regional power at the end of the conflict.The following decades were marked by mutual suspicion and Americanattempts to check Japan’s continental ambition and naval hegemony in thePacific. As such, the war signaled the beginning of a struggle for controlof the Pacific Ocean, culminating 37 years later in the Pacific War.

The 19-month period of the Russo-Japanese War was characterized byinternational awareness of the increasing political importance of the UnitedStates. In the 15 years since 1890 its population had grown tremendously,making it the second most populated power after Russia. By the turn of thecentury it was a leading economic power, but it still lacked the foresightand experience to use its economic achievements for geopolitical means and exert decisive international influence. Throughout the war the UnitedStates, under the dynamic presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, maintainedits neutrality although it subtly changed its attitude to the Japanese. As thelatter did not lose a single battle throughout 1904, Roosevelt’s hopes ofseeing both belligerents exhausted soon faded.41 By the end of that year hewas concerned by the prospects of a Japanese victory and its consequencesfor East Asia, wondering whether the Japanese did not lump all Westerners,together with the Russians, as “white devils inferior to themselves . . . andseek to benefit from our various national jealousies, and beat us in turn.”42

This concern notwithstanding, Roosevelt played the role of host and medi-ator at the Peace Conference that brought the war to its conclusion. Duringthe negotiations at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he demanded that Japanconduct an “Open Door” policy in Manchuria, and return the area to Chinesesovereignty. Unwilling to enter into conflict with Japan, the United Statessigned an agreement with that country in July 1905, in which it recognizedJapanese control over Korea in return for a similar recognition by Japan ofAmerican control over the Philippines.

At the outbreak of the war, many influential Americans, as JosephHenning demonstrates (Chapter 10, this volume), held positive attitudes toJapan and regarded it as the underdog, and certainly more civilized thanRussia. Some of them even tended to perceive the Japanese as semi-whitesdespite being non-Christian. As Japan gained the upper hand, however, agrowing number of Americans, including Roosevelt, became aware of thedangers it constituted for the American presence in East Asia, the Philippines

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in particular; in the following years, even at home anti-Japanese sentimentsoutpaced the work of Japan’s friends in the United States. Many moreAmericans, notably those residing along the west coast, likewise consideredthe war another sign of the “Yellow Peril” and became opposed to furtherAsian immigration to the United States.

The initial goodwill on both sides of the Pacific before and during theclash in Manchuria turned into slow diplomatic deterioration, and the firstsigns of a new conflict surfaced as early as in 1905. Both were rising powersthat saw clearly for the first time the threat each posed to the other’s inter-ests and aspirations to control the ocean expanse and access to the marketsof East Asia. This new outlook had some military implications, and conse-quently in 1907 the Americans updated their “Orange Plan” to protect thewaters of the Pacific Ocean against the Japanese menace, fearing Tokyomight take over American outposts in the Philippines and Hawaii, and mighteven blockade the Panama Canal (completed in 1914). American appre-hension of Japan, slightly premature but not too unrealistic, tightened therestrictions on Japanese immigration to the United States, and was the firststep toward a suspicious and much more hostile policy on Japan in the1920s. Hence, the Russo-Japanese War marks the beginning of relationshipswhich Tal Tovy and Sharon Halevi justly term (Chapter 9, this volume) “a cold war” between the United States and Japan, ending in full militaryconfrontation in December 1941.

The impact on East Asia

Japan’s victory and Russia’s defeat in the war had vital and lasting reper-cussions for Asia in general and its northeastern region in particular. Thewar marked the onset of Japan’s firm grip on the continent and the takeoffpoint in its imperialist expansion. Only after the war was Japan regardedby others, and more especially by its own leaders, as being on an equalfooting with all other imperialist forces involved in East Asian affairs, andonly then did it become, at least from a military perspective, the strongestnation in the region (see Chapter 2, this volume). Russia, on the other hand,lost its colonial momentum in East Asia and returned to intervene in thelocal affairs of the region only in the 1930s. Additionally, the war had abearing on the stability of the imperial regime in China as well as a decisiveand long-term impact on Korean sovereignty.

The victory over Russia did not diminish Japanese military requirements,since the takeover of territories on the mainland created massive defenseneeds. Still, Japan and Russia, as Peter Berton illustrates (Chapter 5, thisvolume), were quick to overcome their previous animosity, and, followinga series of four agreements (1907–16), were able to maintain a peace until the demise of the tsarist regime (see Map 3, p. 17). Nonetheless, twoyears after the war Japan drafted a national security plan that defined Russia, France, and, for the first time, the United States, as possible foes.


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All maintained diplomatic relations with Japan, but they also had interestsin East Asia and in the Pacific Ocean not necessarily congruent with Japan’snational security. At home, Japanese society for the next 40 years viewedthe war as firm evidence of its invincibility. With the removal of the sup-posedly existential threat against the nation, and with overwhelming proofof its successful modernization, Japanese intellectuals turned to deal withquestions of national identity. The war thus intensified the ongoing debatewith regard to two dialectical views on culture, “Japanese” and “Western,”and laid the foundations for the bitter struggle Japan waged against the Westfrom the early 1930s until its surrender in 1945.

In China, the war accelerated widespread political activities resulting sixyears later in the revolution of 1911 and the elimination of the Qing dynastyafter 267 years. Already in 1905, as Harold Z. Schiffrin notes (Chapter 11,this volume), an infrastructure for a constitutional monarchy had been laid, and at the same time the first modern political movement was founded.Sensing its power undermined, after the war the Chinese government began to introduce several reforms, among them the establishment of electedassemblies and a campaign to eradicate the smoking of opium. During thewar the Chinese public had expressed some solidarity with the Japanese,regarding them as brothers in a racial struggle, and, soon after, thousandsof young Chinese flocked to Japan to study at its universities. They foundit to be an appropriate role model for a successful modernization processthat China could emulate. Within three years, however, this sentimentchanged into deep suspicion toward the Japanese, who not only showeddisrespect for the Chinese, but were also determined to snatch Manchuriafrom their hands. In this sense, the Russo-Japanese War, rather than itspredecessor—the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–5—marks the onset of thegreat divide between these two East Asian giants.

The development of Manchuria, today a major industrial region with apopulation exceeding 100 million, is closely related to the consequences ofthe Russo-Japanese War. Its control of southern Manchuria made Japanregard this region as an entity separate from China, thereby placing the two nations on a collision course culminating in a Japanese takeover of theentire region in 1931. Japanese encroachment on Chinese soil began duringthe first Sino-Japanese War, a decade before the war against Russia, but atthe end of that conflict the Three-power Intervention had forced Japan to give up its hold in Manchuria. In 1905, however, no power could takeaway Japan’s coveted prize. The Japanese presence in southern Manchurialed to increased frictions with the Chinese authorities there, but also to adesire to become involved in the internal affairs of China itself. Japaneseaspirations came to light a decade later with the notorious “Twenty-oneDemands,” which Japan submitted to the president of the new Chineserepublic, and which eventually materialized beyond anything imaginableduring the conquest of China starting in 1937. Such a move against China

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Map 3 Asia, 1904–19.

KeyTreaties: A Katsura-Taft Agreement (1905); B Portsmouth Peace Treaty (1905); C Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1905, 1911); D Protectorate Agreement (1905); E Treaty of Peking (1906) (Japan–China); F Anglo-Chinese Alliance (1906); G Franco-Japanese Agreement (1907); H Russo-Japanese Agreements (1907, 1910, 1912,1916); I Takahira-Root Agreement (1908); J Treaty of Annexation (1910); K Treaty of Kyakhta (1915) (Russia, China, and Mongolia); L Lansing-Ishii Pact (1917).Events: 1 Lhasa—British opening of Tibetan trade (1904)2 Kabul—British request for concessions (1904)3. Laotian revolt (1904–6)4 Tokyo—Hibiya riots (1905)5 Tehran—Constitutional Revolution (1906)6 Jakarta (Batavia)—Establishment of the first nationalist movement (1908)7 Harbin—Assassination of Itø Hirobumi (1909)8 Seoul—Korean annexation (1910)9 Beijing—Chinese Revolution (1911)

10 Ulan Bator—Mongolian independence (1911)11 Thailand—Military coup (1912)12 Lhasa—Tibetan independence (1912)13 Tsingtao—Japanese takeover (1914)14 Beijing—Twenty-one Demands (1915)15 Amritsar massacre (1919)16 Seoul—March 1st Movement (1919)

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was impossible at the end of the nineteenth century, but in the wake of thewar with Russia, and even more after the Chinese Revolution of 1911, itno longer seemed far-fetched.

The greatest impact of the war on a single nation was undoubtedly onKorea. This backward and politically weak kingdom at the time was rapidlylosing its sovereignty, until it was finally annexed by Japan in 1910. Afterthe war the Japanese felt confident enough to seize control of almost allaspects of life in Korea, and began to dispatch settlers without internationalprotest. They correctly concluded that no power could prevent them fromannexing Korea, and in the course of less than five years they did not hesi-tate to realize their ambition ruthlessly. From a Korean viewpoint, the endof the Russo-Japanese War marked the beginning of prolonged suppressionand an orchestrated attempt to destroy their national identity—a period thatended only with the fall of Japan in 1945. As Guy Podoler and MichaelRobinson point out (Chapter 12, this volume), the annexation of Korea hasleft its deep scars on the nation’s psyche until today. The fracture of theKorean society and national identity during 35 years of Japanese rule madepossible the territorial division of Korea, no less than the political divisionbetween American and Soviet forces, which respectively installed a capi-talist regime in the south and a communist regime in the north. This politicaldivision characterizes the two states of the Korean peninsula to the presentday. Not only does the great hostility between them endanger peace in thearea, but both states still bear a grudge against Japan for its occupation.Furthermore, North Korea has never established diplomatic relations withJapan and continues to seek compensation for the suffering endured by itspeople during the colonial era.

The war also served as a catalyst for the foundation and activities ofmany radical movements and organizations all over East Asia. Spanning apolitical and ideological spectrum from socialists to nationalists, anarchists,and even communists, these movements were a source of fermentation for many dramatic developments that characterized Asia from a politicalperspective in the following decades. The war, Yitzhak Shichor suggests(Chapter 13, this volume), contributed to the radicalization of moderatesocialist movements in the area, to the de-legitimization of parliamentarydemocracy, and to an emphasis on the national aspect. Extremist move-ments sprang up during the war in China and Japan, but also in countriesthat were under colonial rule, such as Vietnam and the Philippines. In theensuing years they worked for the independence of their countries, albeitwith no marked success at that time.

Echoes of the war in western Asia and the colonial world

In colonial terms, the Russo-Japanese War signaled the final stage of the“Age of Imperialism,” heralding Japan’s 40-year colonial rule in Asia. The

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most significant and concrete spoil of the war was Korea, but it served asa spur for the takeover of all Manchuria 26 years later. Japan and the UnitedStates mutually enhanced their colonial hold by signing two agreements in1905 and 1908, which consolidated their control over Korea and thePhilippines, respectively. Further to the west, Russia and Britain reached anagreement in August 1907 on Tibet and Persia, making the former a bufferstate and dividing the latter into two spheres of influence.43

In spite of these developments, the main impact of the war on the colonialworld was psychological rather than territorial. Colonial subjects across theworld—from Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent to the MiddleEast—were all thrilled by the war. When Sun Yat-sen, a revolutionary whoseveral years later became the first provisional president of the Republic of China, was voyaging down the Suez Canal during the war, a local man approached him and asked if he was Japanese. “The joy of this Arab, as the son of a great Asian race,” Sun noted, “was unbounded.”44

Sun’s keen observation was made at the zenith of a symbolic turning pointin the history of the colonial world: a non-European power employingmodern technology could defeat a European power. From that time on, thevictory was associated with a drive for more active and conscious nation-alist movements in colonial Asia. This first significant rupture of thelong-standing conceptions of superior “West” and inferior “East” created a new mindset, in which Japan served as a role model. With such a mindsetnationalist and revolutionary ideas could thrive in the hope of future real-ization. During the war new sectors of the colonial population, Asian inparticular, began to share their distress over the foreign rule and manifesta desire for a national self-definition. More radical segments of this popu-lation viewed the victory of Japan, a developing Asian country, over a majorEuropean power as a symbol, and as a portent for their own prospects of breaking free of colonial rule and taking the course of modernization onthe Japanese model.

Apart from joy at the Russian defeat, national movements across theArab world, much of it still under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, saw the war as a sign that they too could win soon their independence.45 Furtherto the east, a revolution erupted in Iran that put into power, for the firsttime, a constitutional government. This political upheaval one year after thewar was much affected by the weakening of Russia, but was also inspiredby the knowledge that the victor was an Asian power with a constitution,whereas the vanquished was the only European power without a constitu-tion.46 Two years later another revolution broke out, this time at the heartof the Ottoman Empire itself. There too Japan served as a model of a countrythat had succeeded in adopting modern technology without losing itsnational identity. All in all, the war instilled belief in the Young Turks that they had the strength to cope with Western imperialism and encour-aged them to rebel in 1908. Ultimately, however, the clash in Manchuria


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and the resulting political constellation in Europe were indirectly associ-ated with Istanbul’s decision in the aftermath of the Balkan wars to acceptthe overtures of Germany. The two nations signed, on August 2, 1914, a formal treaty of alliance, leading to immediate general mobilization, adeclaration of war in October, and the entire collapse of the empire fouryears later.

The same year, young upper-class Javanese students in the Dutch EastIndies established the first nationalist movement, the Budi Utomo, devotedto the promotion of Javanese culture. Throughout Muslim Southeast Asia,Michael Laffan finds (Chapter 14, this volume), Japan emerged after thewar as “the light of Asia.” Suddenly it materialized as a savior from Dutch colonialism, but it also featured as one of several lodestars, includingthe Ottoman Empire, for accomplishing a “hybrid modernity.”47 In Indiatoo “the reverberations of that victory,” as the British Viceroy Lord Curzonbecame aware, “have gone like a thunderclap through the whisperinggalleries of the East.”48 Long subjugated under British colonialism, Indiaexperienced an unmistakable psychological impact from the Japanesetriumph, argues T.R. Sareen (Chapter 15, this volume), which stirred up awave of excitement and gave rise to the emergence of a new group of moreradical leaders.49

Only six years after the American takeover and the consequent suppres-sion of the Filipino uprising against the new rulers, the war reignited hopesfor independence in the Philippines. American authorities were aware ofthe potential Japanese threat to the stability of their rule on the archipelagobut in reality their fears were ungrounded, at least at this stage. The newpolitical status of Japan after the war in northeast Asia led its leaders toprefer a settlement with the United States rather than further encouragingthe nationalist aspirations of their southern neighbors. In the aftermath ofcolonial understanding with the United States, Japanese officials limitedtheir contacts with Filipino nationalist leaders. Although impressed by theJapanese victory, disappointment with Tokyo’s new policy led Filipinonationalists to cooperate pragmatically with the Americans in an effort towin greater rights.50

In retrospect, however, the psychological effect and the political reper-cussions of the Japanese victory on movements for independence in thecolonial world were rather limited, notably in comparison with the reper-cussions of the war in other regions discussed here.51 The colonial powerswere determined to maintain their control, whereas most of the local movements were still at the incubation stage of formulating their policy vis-à-vis colonial rule. The ultimate proof that this impact of the war was minoris the fact that no colonial rule collapsed in the following three decades.Hence, although some nationalist movements grew stronger and more deter-mined, it was only Japan’s move against the West in December 1941 thatbrought about the final demise of Western colonialism, even if it resurgedmomentarily with Japan’s surrender four years later.

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Conclusion: the question of causality and the impact of the war

While the lack of public interest in the Russo-Japanese War, as discussedearlier, seems somewhat understandable, one may still wonder why histor-ians have overlooked such a wide array of seemingly important reper-cussions. After all, they virutally affected every major nation involved in thechronicles of the early twentieth century. Could it be that the cause-and-effect relations between the fighting in remote Manchuria and subsequentevents elsewhere were simply weak and indirect? Or could it be thathistorians encounter difficulty identifying such relations?

The question of causality is one of the fundamental issues in the studyof history. In his classic study What is History? Edward H. Carr assertsthat historical inquiry is the inquiry of reasons.52 Historians indeed attributeextreme importance to causes and effects, and implicitly deal with therelations between one event or action and another in almost every one oftheir works. Causality is also the underlying motif of this book: the effectof the Russo-Japanese War on subsequent events throughout the world. Still, historical causality is often a precarious issue. It is a simple task tolink an event to another immediate occurrence and argue for causal rela-tions, but it is increasingly harder and less evident as the occurrence becomesmore remote.

When dealing with causality, historians show preference for the study ofthe origins of a single event over its outcomes and impact. The preferenceis associated perhaps with the propensity historians have to view their discip-line as a science, that is, a field governed by rules that might be appliedfor future use. The study of the origins of wars, as such, can be used forpreventing them, whereas the study of the impact of wars seems more likean intellectual exercise. Moreover, the study of causes culminates in a singleevent, whereas the study of the outcomes of a single event expands andmultiplies into countless events as the retrospective becomes broader andmore distant. For this reason, we find a large number of studies, and evenfull discourses (“historical debates”), regarding the origins of wars but muchless concerning the impact those wars have had.53

It is reasonable to assume that the effect of the Russo-Japanese War onthe outbreak of World War I in 1914 did not resemble its effect on themuch later outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941. Similarly, its effect on the annexation of Korea in 1910 was obviously much more crucial than the impact it had on the ongoing and wide-ranging events in China thatculminated in the revolution of 1911. Nonetheless, causal relations involvemore than that. While all contributors to this volume assume that the Russo-Japanese War had a substantial impact on their respective field of inqury,to them the term impact does not necessarily mean the same. This implicitmeaning is important. Do they all take it that the war was a preliminarycondition, a precipitant, an accelerator, or only a trigger for the occurrence


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of a given subsequent event? Do they imply that the war was a suffi-cient condition or an imperative condition for this event to occur?54 Do theybelieve the war was the only cause, the crucial cause, or merely one out ofmany causes of this event?

Most of the contributors have overlooked these semantic differences.They have done so not only because the study of history barely providesthe methodological means to identify the sort of causal relations that existbetween two consequent events (thus we often prefer the term “influence”to “impact”), but also because they have all dealt with a vast array of eventsand could not examine in detail the type of impact each of them had. Despitethis methodological constraint and space limitation, their studies, separatelyand together, invariably suggest that the Russo-Japanese War, although nota global conflict in itself, had extremely broad and consequential repercus-sions. With a century’s hindsight, one may even argue that the global impactof the Russo-Japanese War was far more important than the effect of anycolonial war, and probably any other conflict, that took place between theNapoleonic wars and the outbreak of World War I.

Notes1 Many publications on the war and the military campaign were written in the

first decade after the war by various reporters, military observers, and generalstaffs. Notable among them are multi-volume official histories published byAustria-Hungary, 1910–14; France, 1910–14; Germany, 1910–11, 1911–12;Great Britain, 1906–10, 1910–20; Japan, 1906, 1912; and Russia, 1910–13,1912–18. Although we still anticipate an authoritative overview of the militarycampaign, which will take into account archival materials and documents ofboth belligerents as well as their observers, in recent decades there have beena number of publications that survey all or certain aspects of the land and navalwarfare, such as Connaughton, 1988; Jukes, 2003; Levitsky, 2003; Menning,1992; Øe, 1988; Shinobu and Nakayama, 1972; Tani, 1966; Warner and Warner,1974; and Zolotarev and Kozlov, 1990.

2 Relatively speaking, there has been much written on the origins of the war andRusso-Japanese conflict in general, notably Duus, 1995; Lensen, 1959, 1982;Malozemoff, 1958; Nish, 1985; Romanov, 1952; and Stephan, 1994.

3 Hitler, 1939: 205.4 In an article published on October 28, 1905, in Gandhi, 1961, V: 115; see also

Gandhi, 1960, IV: 466–7. Similarly, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime ministerof India after its independence, who was 15 years old at the outbreak of thewar, recalled how the war assisted Indians to free themselves from their feelingof inferiority. In Nehru, 1934–5: 455, 514.

5 Cited in Gotø, 1997: 301–2.6 David Thomson, for example, labeled the Russo-Japanese War the “fifth major

colonial dispute.” In Thomson, 1966: 518.7 For additional examples, see Shillony and Kowner, 2007.8 “In choice of subjects the criterion I used was that they must be truly repre-

sentative of the period in question and have exerted their major influence oncivilization before 1914, not after.” In Tuchman, 1966: xv.

9 On the war in Russian historical memory, see Oleinikov, 2005: 505, 517.

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10 Steinberg et al., 2005: xix–xxi.11 Toward the end of the war, Russia mobilized to Manchuria most of its regu-

lars from Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, but refrained from mobilizingmost of its reserves, ending with about 500,000 of them in Manchuria out of more than three million. See, for example, Bushnell, 2005, 342–3, 346. The Russian death toll in the Crimean War was at least five times greater thanin the Russo-Japanese War, amounting to about 256,000 dead. In Arnold, 2002: 39.

12 Two European nations witnessed a substantial shift in their military expendi-tures during the war or immediately after it: Russian expenditure declinedsharply whereas German expenditure rose. In Stevenson, 1996: 2–8.

13 Herrmann, 1996: 7.14 On the post-war negative image of the Russian national character in general

and the capabilities of the Russian army in particular among the British, German,and Austro-Hungarian military authorities, see Herrmann, 1996: 93–5.

15 McDonald, 1992: 77. On the kaiser’s schemes at Björkö, see McLean, 2003.16 See Kennedy, 1988: 325.17 On the German plans for a preventive war in 1905, see Moritz, 1974.18 On the German overlapping and outdated government structure, see Steinberg,

1970.19 The German operational war plan against France (known as the Schlieffen Plan)

was designed soon after of the Russo-Japanese War and affected by its outcome.This daring but purely military plan was finalized by General Alfred vonSchlieffen, the German Chief of Staff, and formed the basis for the Germanattack in 1914 with regular annual revision. Following the Russian defeat,Schlieffen argued that, in the coming war, the decisive theater would be inwestern Europe, and that the relatively weak armies of Russia could be heldby defensive operations during the first weeks. On the Schlieffen Plan, seeBucholz, 1993; and Zuber, 2002; and on its repercussions in 1905, seeMombauer, 2001: 72–80. On the decision to replace Schlieffen, see Ritter, 1958:111. On the French Plan XV, see Herrmann, 1996; Luntinen, 1984; andTannenbaum, 1984.

20 Fischer, 1975, 164–7; Geiss, 1967, docs 3, 4, cited in Ferguson, 1999: 100. In another memorandum regarding Russia’s future potential written in 1914,Moltke estimated that the Russian army would be fully fitted from 1917onwards, concluding: “There cannot be any more serious doubt about the factthat a future war will be about the existence of the German people.” Cited inMombauer, 2001: 176. For a similar conclusion regarding Moltke’s view of“war now or never,” see Mombauer, 2001: 288.

21 See Ascher, 1988; Bushnell, 2005; Galai, 1973; and Kusber, 1997, 2007.22 See Erickson Healy, 1976; Galai, 1973; and Walkin, 1962.23 Even in late 1901, slightly before Britain concluded its alliance with Japan,

Arthur Balfour, a supporter of an alliance with Germany and soon Britain’sprime minister, argued that “the Japanese Treaty, if it ends in war, bring usinto collision with the same opponents as a German alliance, but with a muchweaker partner.” In Balfour Papers, Add. Mss 49727, Balfour to Lansdowne,December 12, 1901. Cited in Charmley, 1999: 301.

24 For example, Kennedy, 1981: 118–39.25 See Kennedy, 1988: 324–7.26 For example, Andrew, 1968; Charmley, 1999; Monger, 1963; and Rolo, 1969.27 Gooch, 1974: 171, 175; Monger, 1963: passim.28 Ferguson, 1999: 56–81.


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29 Ignoring the complex motives and strong fears of Germany in Britain in1908–14, several historians have argued simplistically that Britain’s decision tojoin the war in August 1914 was spurred by fears of Russia becoming too strongan empire in case of victory over Germany and the repercussions of such ascenario for the British Empire. In a similar manner, an attitude of “appeasingthe strong” can be observed in 1903–4. If we accept this line of argument, theRusso-Japanese War did little to alleviate these fears, but it did help Britain toappease Russia. Furthermore, Germany accordingly did not pose the greatestthreat to Britain either in 1904 or in 1914, although this does not necessarilymean that during the Russo-Japanese War German threats did not grow substan-tially. See, for example, Ferguson, 1999: 54–5; and Wilson, 1985.

30 See Behnen, 1985: 100.31 On Russian diplomatic weakness after the war and on Russian policy in the

Balkans, see Anderson and Hershey, 1918; McDonald, 1992, 2005.32 See Edström, 1998: 13.33 On Finnish political status during and after the war, see Hodgson, 1960. On

Finnish revolutionary activities during the war and collaboration with Japan,see Copeland, 1973; Fält, 1976, 1979, 1988; Kujala, 1980; and Zilliacus, 1912.

34 Seton-Watson, 1977: 87.35 On Polish attempts to collaborate with Japan during the war, see Bandø, 1995;

Fountain, 1980; Inaba, 1992; and Lerski, 1959.36 James, 1974, I: 82.37 For the figures on the casualties, see Kowner, 2006: 80–1.38 On the humane aspects of the military campaign, see, for example, Kowner,

2000a; and Towle, 1975.39 For studies on the military observers in the Russo-Japanese War, see

Greenwood, 1971; and Towle 1998, 1999.40 O’Brien, 1998: 32.41 See, for example, Trani, 1969: 36.42 Roosevelt to Cecil Spring Rice on December 27, 1904. In Morison, 1951–4,

IV: 1085–6.43 On the British takeover of Lhasa during the war, see Stewart, 2007.44 Cited in Jansen, 2000: 441.45 On the public interest in the war in Egypt, see Bieganiec, 2007; and Marks,

2005.46 Whereas the general public and military personnel throughout the Ottoman

Empire were enthusiastic about the Japanese triumph, the official reaction was ambivalent, partly because of the Sultan’s fears that Japan’s victory mightbe interpreted as a victory of a constitutional state over an autocracy. On thereactions to the Japanese victory in the Ottoman Empire, see Akmese, 2005:30–1, 72–8.

47 On the reactions to the war in the Dutch East Indies, see also Rodell, 2005.48 Quoted in Passin, 1982: 14.49 On the impact of the war in India, see also Dua, 1966; Dutta, 1969; and Marks,

2005.50 On the relations of the Philippines with Japan and the United States before and

after the war, see Yu-Jose, 1992. Rodell (2005) argues that nationalist move-ments in the Philippines and Vietnam were the only ones in Southeast Asia ata sufficiently advanced stage to be significantly affected by the war. See Rodell,2005: 635–52.

51 On the difficulty associating the war with the revolt in Laos in 1904–6, theabortive military coup in Thailand in 1912, or the nationalist undertaking inBurma, see Rodell, 2005: 644, 631–3.

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52 Carr, 1961.53 See, for example, the historical debate in Germany on the origins of World

War I (e.g. Mombauer, 2002), as well as the origins of German behavior inmodern times (“der deutsche Sonderweg”) and the writings in the early 1960sin Japan on the origins of the Pacific War (e.g. Taiheiyø sensø e no michi:kaisen gaikø shi [The Road to the Pacific War: A Diplomatic History of theOrigins of the War]).

54 In his Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume defines causesin imperative terms. That is, if one object does not exist, the subsequent objectcannot exist either. In Hume, 1777 [1975]: 76.


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